Usogui - Vol. 43 Ch. 468 - Usogui

[BossCrab]

@Lithe
I have a couple of thoughts. Here's how I interpreted a few of the things in this arc. (Spoiler to not fill the comment page with a wall of text. Sorry that I do this every so often, I hope it's not too annoying.)

As usual, I'm sorry if you knew all of this beforehand and I'm wasting your time. I also don't want this to come off wrong; I'm not intending to talk down or lecture or anything. I just really like this manga, and there's a lot to talk about! If I'm completely wrong on some of these, I hope someone like @Veshv or @catx3 or @a2j04vm0 could come in and explain some of the minutia better than I can lol

Spoiler

About Lalo strapping himself to the chair to get around the drowning rule, or trying to kill Baku:
You're right that this is a much better solution to try and get around the loophole of defining death as standing for 10 seconds. This would have been the correct course of action for him: if he had intended to get around that at all. He wasn't planning on trying to stay alive, nor was he planning on trying to force Baku to drown with him. He stood up when the gamble ended, because he believed he had truly and completely lost. Lalo actually sat until he was on his final Air Bios, and moved when it was nearly out. Lalo stood up to accept his fate, free Baku, and simply die while thinking about his comrades (Billy in particular). When he did this, and freed Baku, he had no intentions of grabbing him at all. He was fully ready to die as is. This is the reason Baku swam over to him; Baku couldn't stand the idea of Lalo getting a peaceful send off, taking solace in the fact that he was soundly beaten.

We know from the earlier parts of the Portoporos arc (particularly when Lalo lost the ability to become Kaiser) that, to Lalo, changing his plans and actions comes as naturally as changing the channel. This means its not really something he's even thinking about; switching channels is something you lazily do while browsing the TV looking for something good to watch. Baku was aware of this; he knew that Lalo was planning on just accepting his death, but if Baku gave him the opportunity to grab him and kill him easily, Lalo would go "oh, well okay" and grab at him. This of course was just a plan for Baku to expose that he hid no air and make Lalo realize he made the incorrect choice in the gamble, and that no one was to blame for his death but himself. Lalo had not planned to kill Baku, he wanted to just die. But when Baku gave him the opportunity, he decided to just go for it. This is why the referees are horrified; someone who is fighting their fate and using all of their last life energy for a violent act like this should be going berserk, but Lalo looked the same as always, as if it was just something he decided to do without thought or effort.

Lalo's Dissatisfying End:
I think this was kind of the point. I know, I've been in your shoes with other stories, and hearing "well its SUPPOSED to be disappointing" is completely unsatisfying. But hear me out.

Bai Long met a miserable end in the Portoporos arc. I was pretty dissatisfied with the way he went out initially; a fighter on the level of Kyara and Tatsuki should have been so much more than getting mangled by a mob of normal people and oneshot with no recognition by Taka. but @MYW made a great point; it was perfectly fitting for his character. He was too late to meet a glorious end against an equal like Yakou, and he was too late for Ying to acknowledge him properly. Long's miserable end was tragic, but it's exactly what he deserved. I think Lalo is similar. On the surface, the penultimate boss of the manga should have had some crazy gambits and gambles of his own, on the level of Baku and Hal, and not been completely ensnared in Usogui's traps. But despite Lalo the Ideal Boss being this giant force of nature throughout the manga constantly disrupting Kakerou, this kind of pathetic end is what Lalo the Gambler deserved.

At every turn, Lalo and Ideal tried to flip the table and get what they want that way. They were funding Sadakuni's rigged games in the mountain to cause his revolution and gain immense wealth. Billy was constantly messing with the Kakerou power structure. In the Tower Gamble, Ideal had completely used/outmaneuvered Ranko and placed their ace piece, Suteguma, in the driver's seat for Surpassing the Leader. However, Suteguma loses the gamble to Baku fair and square, even with Caracal and Martin trying to influence the game. Baku takes the 50 billion and full credit for the Karamete, and gains the rights to play Surpassing the Leader. And yet Ideal flips the table; Suteguma lost, but Lalo steals the 50 billion anyway. Hal basically allows him to cut into the game and fight Baku directly (giving Ideal another chance at what Suteguma lost), despite Baku saying it was his own fault. Then, in the Portoporos game, despite doing decently well, his team was soundly defeated by Baku's, and Lalo fell right into the trap of becoming Kaiser too early. The second he did that, he once again flipped the table and tried to bring the Nightmare to Portoporos to force his win.

Now, these are all thematically acceptable in the world of Usogui, where might makes right. And for Lalo the Ideal Boss, it certainly fits to wage war on Kakerou this way, because Kakerou can only enforce things because they have absolute power, and it fits in the manga where we routinely see the situations change based on who has the violence and control of a territory. But when we consider Lalo the gambler, Lalo's pieces lost multiple times, and ultimately Baku was able to drag him down to his own level. He brought him into the realm of a 1v1 (ended up being a 2v2) deathmatch where Lalo was completely outmatched. Yes, if he hadn't flipped the table in the Portoporos game or Air Poker he would have died anyway, but it would have given him peace in death. Especially in Air Poker. But Lalo could not resist trying to flip the table one more time when the opportunity presented itself. Lalo with the backing of the entire force of Ideal behind him is a power to be reckoned with, but Lalo, alone, in the frame of a Kakerou game was nothing special. Despite his status, and all the competent people under him, he brought about his own miserable ruin by misjudging the situation and failing to grasp the victory that was in his hands alone. He is a weak gambler. And Baku needed to show him the depths of his despair. Lalo the Ideal Boss lost when he tried to invade the island of Portoporos and his final ace fighters like Long were defeated by Yakou and the referees (having already lost Billy, Voja, Jonglyo). Lalo the Gambler lost in a miserable way to Baku where he could have won had he simply folded. I think both of these are fitting when you think of it this way.

He never truly earned the right to sit at Surpassing the Leader. He stole the 50 billion and managed to use his overwhelming manpower and violence to force a situation on Portoporos where Usogui had no choice but to meet him halfway again. Was there enough loopholes or oversights in the rules to allow him to do this? Yes, that's a failure on Baku/Kakerou's part and a success for Lalo, but there is still supposed to be honor among thieves. Which is why Hal said Usogui had the right to StL, not Lalo, and all of the Ideal invading forces were considered Ban Invaders (they were used as decoys for Lalo to scare the actual players into doing his bidding, but still).

I may be misunderstanding what you mean by "its dissatisfying for plot purposes". Yes, Lalo could have done things differently and made better choices. But I think that is the point; he did not make better choices because ultimately he is not a gambler on the level of Baku and Hal.

As an aside, I think this is why so many people (including myself) are so fond of Suteguma. Suteguma was a true gambler, one that Baku truly considered an equal. He is the only person Baku has defeated that did not get the "you are a big liar" speech at the end (Ranko did instead), despite Suteguma trying to change plans right at the end to swear loyalty to Ranko. (Lalo switched plans too, but Suteguma was not really trying to flip the table in that game; he was initially supposed to be allied with Ranko anyway and the upper level of the Tower was lawless anyway). Baku said his gambling plan was truly perfect. Suteguma was completely defeated by Baku, but he was recognized as an equal by Baku and Ranko, who have both executed their judgement on others.

Why Lalo didn't grab at Usogui's respirator
This is a good point! It's a lame answer, but I think it's just a bit out of reach. Usogui was very careful to get near Lalo but leave all his actual lifelines out of reach. Lalo grabbed Usogui's ankle, but Baku is holding his own Bios in his hand. He grabs him here, and we see the scene again here, but I don't know if he could have grabbed at the Bios or respirator here. It's possible he could have grabbed it here, but he was already drowning and losing physical strength. Maybe he should have tried, but he was so confident that Baku had been saving air, that he went for that one since it would give him air in the short term and allow him to keep his grip. Baku has use of both his hands, and is using his free leg to kick Lalo's face. Lalo meanwhile has to keep his grip on Usogui and use his other hand try to change out his air; remember that he only stood up when his final Air Bos was nearly out, and he didn't have much oxygen in his reserves, so if he's still going to exert energy on Usogui (who has a full Air Bios to work with) to try and pull him down, despite being anchored, he's going to start using a lot more oxygen. So he runs out of his reserves rather quickly and needs more (illustrated here). Lalo is definitely stronger and more physically resilient than Usogui, but he's not Hal level; it probably would have been too hard to pull Usogui's entire weight down, hold him there, and fight him off, and keep switching his air bios as needed.

The "using" Air Bios rule
I suppose this is a quirk and a loophole that may need to be cleared up. To be honest, I hadn't thought much about it. It feels like this is something that would have been just a referee judgement call; most of the games they play seem to have one or two of these moments where the referees just decide on things to do because there's almost always something that goes outside of the expected actions (Yukiide "looking" at the labyrinth / Baku betting the day of Surpassing the Leader, Nanpou creating the vacuum in the labyrinth). I suppose in a manga this detail oriented it should have come up, but thinking about it, in the poker game Kaji played at the start of the series, wasn't it assumed that he would lose instantly / be forced to fold when he could no longer match the bets on the table? That always confused the hell out of me; maybe Lalo and Baku were playing by similar rules here. I remember the whole thing was his opponent kept betting to the max and his plan was to somehow force Kaji out since he couldn't match the bet (the concept of Kaji simply all-inning with what he had wasn't valid, he had to somehow match the entire amount of money). I see your point about this kind of being a loose end, but I don't think the manga will address it; maybe this is a quirk of Japanese poker rules I don't understand?

All in all, I'll miss Lalo. The way he talked about how beautiful Billy and Voja were, how he looked at his diamonds, how he was trying to ask Billy where he went wrong, all beautiful in a warped tragic way. Sako got to draw him in some amazing ways too.

 

[Veshv]

@BossCrab @Lithe
It's technically in the rules, if a player is unable to pay the ante, the game immediately swaps over to a battle of resilience.

As for the situation you're suggesting, it'd pretty much come down to a play on words, literally as was with Baku's Kakerou shirt during the Minotaur match. I think the risk of the referee call was deterrent enough for the most part, which means Baku has enough reason not to try that stunt.

Lalo on the other hand, would probably have tried it if he had the chance. For this strategy to work, you need to have more Bios than the opponent, and be certain of your victory in the current round. then you can start opening up your remaining Bios and open up the ones you win right after. The problem here is that Lalo was never both at the same time, until the last round (though he ended up wrong, but that's beside the point). The other problem with doing this, is time. Baku clearly breathed at a faster pace than Lalo so it's hard to gauge perfectly, but basically due to the extension of round 4, we can assume normally a round would start very soon after the previous ends, so I estimate around 30 seconds in between rounds. Which is important because opening Air-Bios counts as stalling the match, essentially, because it's an action not respecting the limited amount of time. That's not enough time to "safely" open up all the Bios that you win, and leaves you at the whims of what happens in the next round. Obviously if the opponent realizes what you're doing, like would happen if Lalo tried it on Baku, Baku would literally have swapped gears and immediately play 25 to force a victory.

It feels like I wrote a bunch of word salad, but I guess what I'm trying to get across is that Baku wouldn't try it because it can result in instant loss, and Lalo never had the chance to try it.

Edit: @a2j04vm0 Weren't Baku and Lalo on their 6th and 5th Air-Bios, respectively during the 5th round? Minor point but was a bit confused.

 

[silentshot]

Baku's not dead after all. Thank God.

 

[BossCrab]

@Veshv @Lithe
Actually, your post reminded me that I HAD seen the phrase about stalling mentioned almost explicitly in the manga. Upon a re-read I was able to confirm it. "The changing of Air Bios too slowly or too frequently could be counted as obstructing the game". The referees have already warned them about changing the Bios. You're right; the game is too short and fast paced to keep changing Air Bios frequently. Along with the rules about having to pay the ante, it pretty much makes the strategy a non-starter.

So if they tried the stunt of switching their Bios too much to take them out of play, they'd be considered obstructing the game and lose. They would also obviously alert the other to what they're doing. Lalo was able to sneak a couple in later in the game, and Usogui pretended like he was sneaking air because he was going through them so fast, but if they kept going through Air Bios it'd become way too obvious.

 

[a2j04vm0]

@Veshv
Oops, you're right. It's 5th and 6th, not 7th and 8th.

 

[Lithe]

@BossCrab It was a great read, and I agree with your general assessment of the story. It was good enough that I want to briefly clarify what I meant by "for plot purposes" and consequently why I even bothered to mention at all that I didn't care all that much about Lalo.

Spoilers only for length.

Spoiler

Agreeing with what you said, the result was quite fitting. And perhaps I've misjudged Lalo, I just think it would have been equally natural for him not to fall for the despair trick in the end. I think Sako Toshio did a good job in portraying him as good enough for that, generally speaking. And this is where the "I don't care that much about him" comes in - I certainly would have liked to read his specific thoughts when he was planning his various Protoporos strategies to draw more specific judgments, beyond just watching his very similar and crafty strategies play out from the point of view of Baku. He was just that good.

Spoiler

Actually, I think this desire applies to all of Usogui. I might more strongly disagree with your specific point about the readers having more information (infinite time to discuss is a given). The fact of the matter is, we don't know everything about what Baku was thinking and what Baku observes, and as a character in the story, he might be privy to more accurate assessments of the situation. Take for example the various SFX that Team Duwang chooses to translate. We can only guess (with pretty good accuracy+detail, I admit) at what they are whereas characters in-story will practically know it outright.
I think it's just part of the gambling genre mystique, the ability to guess what is happening next due to the author not outright telling us everything, but sometimes I feel this manga crosses that line in detail provided as being too obfuscated.

But to my point about plot purposes, I've completely taken myself out of judging characters and behaviors. I'm speaking purely about meta-storytelling taste. Since I believed both options equally viable from the limits of what I've seen of Lalo (Baku is irrelevant in this case), I simply mentioned the outcome that goes better for my general story-enjoying experience - the perceived final boss deserving something better than the norm in this story.

As an aside, I'd like to compare this to the Tower Gamble with the Dotty. Can you imagine if the actual sum actually was 11 or 12? Is it unnatural for it to be those numbers? I don't think so. But you know for story-telling purposes, it's not going to be. I'd say it was a fine choice to not have one of them immediately win with that gamble (though if you could argue why that would also be unnatural in a numbers guessing game, that would be interesting too). But to me, it's merely a matter of the author making it a plot development or not.

@Veshv I also believe in the referee judgment call - it would be its own gamble. In my hypothetical, I'm assuming that either of them would be fast enough to change bios for the strategy to actually work - the difficulty in changing bios would have required more focus if I was to be convinced that it was absolutely unworkable from that point of view. But I've long come to accept the obscurities in the rules as being part of Kakerou gambles. It's more my position as a mere reader that has me questioning the limits of what is and isn't acceptable in providing or not the details of the rules of the game in order to optimally enjoy the story.

Enjoyed all of the posts. Thanks to Team Duwang for even picking this story up from EGS, I always considered it one of the great losses from that group and was so excited when I saw more chapters just appear again. This release schedule has hit such a glorious stride.

 

[Veshv]

@Lithe
Fair point, but I think the problem with that is that what exactly are you defining as fast enough? Fast enough that the referees/opponent don't realize it? I understood the strategy as "Whilst you have a Bios advantage, remove enough Bios from consideration so that you can't pay the ante." So dropping yourself to 2/3/4 "betting" Bios. It's not possible to do it fast enough that the referees don't recognize what you're doing since you'd at best go through 5 before they catch on. Even less, truthfully. And for this to work, you'd have to render at least 20 Bios unusable, depending on the round and without calamities. I will say that I think the possibility was there during the 4th round to do what you're suggesting, because of the stall. If Lalo did know that a remake was being done, I don't doubt he would try exactly that, because he had the Bios advantage and only had to break 18 of his Bios.

It's a fair consideration to wonder if this is possible or not. Personally after what @BossCrab pointed out about the rules, I think the referees made it clear that it would not be tolerated, even though I entertained the idea as a potential option earlier.

 

[BossCrab]

@Lithe @Veshv
Thanks for all the spirited discussions! It's been a long time since I've read a manga that is this compelling, and I'm enjoying experiencing it with everyone.

 

[uncidutch]

Rip to lalo he had the best character design

 

[LovetoYuu]

Air poker is my favorite arc since the old maid one. What a thriller